keeping spare-time-contributors happy

[Hans de Goede]

Hi all,

Just adding my 2 cents to this thread, a bit late in the game I admit, but I 
try to stay out of discussions as much as possible and instead do something 
productive.

Note the is not intended as oil on the fire, as said its just my 2 cents.

As a contributer with lots of packages (the counter has hit 150 now) I quite 
regulary push updates and I must say bodhi's current usuability is barely 
acceptable. What ever happened to the promised "make updates[-testing]"?

Also and maybe even more so I find the speed at which requested updates get 
pushed unacceptable. Take this one for example:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F7/id3lib-3.8.3-17.fc7

3 days and 6 hours! And that was a security update!

Or this one, which got requested 2 days ago, and still isn't pushed:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/pending/F7/vavoom-1.24-3.fc7
Again a security update!

This long delay also is _very_ frustrating when adding new packages and making 
sure there is a clean upgrade path all the time. This used to be:
[hans at ... fedora-extras] common/cvs-import.sh wip/foo/foo-1.0-1.fc7.src.rpm
[hans at ... fedora-extras] cvs co foo
[hans at ... fedora-extras] cd foo/devel
[hans at ... devel] make build
[hans at ... devel] cp * ../FC-6
[hans at ... devel] cp * ../FC-5
[hans at ... devel] cd ../FC-6
[hans at ...  FC-6] make clog && cvs commit -F clog && rm clog && make tag build
[hans at ...  FC-6] cd ../FC-5
[hans at ...  FC-5] make clog && cvs commit -F clog && rm clog && make tag build

<done>

Now it is
[hans at ... fedora-extras] common/cvs-import.sh wip/foo/foo-1.0-1.fc8.src.rpm
[hans at ... fedora-extras] cvs co foo
[hans at ... fedora-extras] cd foo/devel
[hans at ... devel] make build
[hans at ... devel] cp * ../F-7
[hans at ... devel] cp * ../FC-6
[hans at ... devel] cd ../F-7
[hans at ...  F-7] make clog && cvs commit -F clog && rm clog && make tag build
[hans at ...  F-7] cd ../FC-6
[hans at ...  FC-6] make clog && cvs commit -F clog && rm clog && make tag
<notice the missing build at the last line! >
<wait for F-7 build to complete>
<wait some more>
<goto bodhi request f-7 package push as update, skip updates-testing, otherwise
  this gets even more painfull>
<wait ...>
<remind oneself must do make build in foo/FC-6 once F-7 package is build>
<wait ...>
<really must not forget to do make build in foo/FC-6 once F-7 package is build>
<then finally, get the mail it is pushed, and then>
[hans at ...  FC-6] make build

<or oops forgotten>
<some time later, hey a bugzilla ticket why I never build foo for FC-6>

There have been times when I send myself reminder mails telling myself which 
packages still need building for FC-6 !

As I write this down, I realize how much this has frustrated me lately, because 
I know everyone involved has been doing his best, I've kept quiet so far. But 
now we are discussing this ...

<rant mode on, excuse me>
To be frank this just plain sucks! One of the _great_ powers of extras use to 
be the ease with which new packages could be added and now its a royal pain in 
the butt.
</rant mode>

I've considered only adding new packages to rawhide, but do we really want to 
go there? In the vast majority new packages will have zero ZERO _zero_ 
interaction with other packages, as in influencing from the new to the old. So 
the chance for regressions is also usually close to zero. Thus making new 
packages available for current releases is a service and should be easily doable!

Regards,

Hans